


A Triptych in Red

by Gothiiknight



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Angeal being depressing and too hopeful about Genesis, Angeal having a very distortedly positive image of Genesis, Angeal just not being a great friend to Zack, Angst, Blood, Friendship, Implied Angeal Hewley/Genesis Rhapsodos, general sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-09 16:51:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11673201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gothiiknight/pseuds/Gothiiknight
Summary: As Angeal lays dying, there's something he wishes he could capture in words. Something he could hand to Zack so he could make it all better, to help Genesis, to explain maybe how things went wrong. To understand it, at least.





	A Triptych in Red

_“Protect your honor, always.”_

Angeal thinks of many things, as he dies. Things he wants to say to Zack. That maybe he’s what Angeal and Genesis could have been. Honor and dreams twined together. The good parts of them, not the weak ones. Not the avarice or the emptiness.

That he’s sorry for this. That he’s grateful for this.

Now that he’s free, and that is what this is Zack. It’s freedom. He wants to explain so much. Wants to show him, tell him that he's proud, tell him that he's better than Angeal could've hoped for in a student, in a legacy, in a friend, that he knows he's failed him. Tell him-

This should be a private moment between the two of them. This should be one of the most private moments two humans can share. But there's something he'd like to say, something he’s trying to think, even as he fades away, except he can’t say it without the right words. And it has nothing to do with the man in front of him at all.

Maybe if he _could_ explain it, just lay down the rhythm of it, he’d know where he went wrong. What he did, what he didn’t do. Know what Zack could say to Genesis some day that would make him come back. Turn back. That would heal him of whatever wound Angeal hadn’t been able to. There had to be something because~

Well.

**_There was a boy once and he was shining._ **

The memory folded out like a panel, a perfect image of what it’d been.

It wasn’t that he glowed really, but Angeal had always thought of him as shining. Genesis was clean, and bright, and fierce. He was the sort of person that showed up in more color than other people, even when they were children. To Angeal, he was the sort of person color was _for_.

It was the day Angeal first knew what he’d be for the rest of his life.

He’d never thought of it too much, there were many things he _could_ be, a few he wanted to be, things he’d talked about being, but he didn’t have a dream of it. He didn’t have a Tomorrow. He never had, really.

The sun had been setting, wasn’t that odd? It felt like it should have been rising. But it hadn't. Genesis had been going home after an afternoon of playing, but had reached out to clasp his hand. Easily as that, Angeal had reached back, curious.

“We’re going to be Soldiers,” his best friend had said with a smile, with a child’s casual severity.

His oldest friend had said while _shining_.

His only friend had said, offering his dream to share as easily as an apple. As a chocolate. As-as _breathing_.

Dreams were a treasure. Dreams, poems, songs, those beautiful, ephemeral things. They were treasures. Genesis _treasured_ them. And yet as easy as that, it was them together.

Why did everyone always forget that Genesis could be kind? Why did everyone forget that Angeal didn’t steal from his friend’s orchard, because if Gen ever caught him he knew he’d wake up one day to baskets of them.

He _knew_.

“We are,” he’d answered back, with certainty. And when he said it, even as a child, it was absolute in him. He would be a Soldier, for the rest of his life. As easy as that.

Maybe he should’ve thought about how easy that was, for Gen. Maybe...

Except.

 **There had been a man once, and he was** **_burning_ ** **.**

Genesis had started to burn, as they grew older. Everything about him a pure hot flame of himself. Anger and joy and sorrows and loves, from candle flame to bonfire there was the light and the heat and-

Angeal hadn't minded that his friend didn’t look at him so much, anymore. They’d fought beside each other for years, they’d grown together. He could feel Genesis’ presence in a room without trying to.  And you didn’t have to look at a flame, to feel it was there.

The other man was focused, heated. That dream he’d shared so long ago sharpening, intensifying, and Angeal felt left behind sometimes. But even that was okay, because they were still Soldiers together.

And, he didn’t remember it as well, maybe he should have. But there had been something on the television. Angeal couldn’t remember. Maybe it had been important.

He’d looked unhappy, so Angeal had reached for him, offered a hand. Genesis reached back, without looking, and gave him something else.

“We’ll be heroes.”

Another dream, another offering of something precious and prized. And, such a good thing too, a thing that didn’t just offer light, but warmth, something to fill the chest. _Heroes_ . _Together_.

They needed to remember that Genesis was a hero, had wanted to be a hero, even then. Angeal had known he would be, that both of them would be. Genesis would be the greatest hero the world had ever seen. With all that faith and drive inside him, that boundless burning strength. He’d light the world with his flame.

Angeal knew that in the same way he’d always known things, certainly. Except-things were growing darker now.

And it was important, no. Before he left it was so important just to finish. Even if it hurt. This part hurt the most, but he needed to understand, if he could just tell someone  maybe they would understand that-

That-

**_There was a pyre now, but the flames were still his friend._ **

“ _But what will we do-”_

“We’ll be monsters,” Genesis answered, and he said it so easily, without bothering to turn around, flicking the hand Angeal had placed on his shoulder away.

It wasn’t the first time it’d been said. Genesis had made it clear what Angeal was. What he felt he was. And Angeal knew that too, in the way he always had when the other told him things so simply so plainly. He knew it certainly, to the bone. He was a monster.  
  
But all Angeal knew then was that his friend had been hot to the touch, even through the jacket. Feverish and burning up, all that beautiful flame gone _in_ . And-  
  
All of it was crumbling now, too hard to keep hold of anything beyond tumbling and blackness and the scent in the air of his own blood. Some of Zack’s, tears, sweat- he couldn’t stop thinking of Genesis.

 _He had hurt so many people_ . _He had killed so many people. Setting the world aflame. Angeal had **let** him kill so many people. How could he have let Genesis go so far, hurt so much? _ If he’d still been breathing he would’ve choked on it, the guilt

This time, though, Angeal didn’t want the  _We_ in his friend's words. Because he held something far more deeply.

Genesis was a hero. He was supposed to be the hero.

And maybe, maybe now that Angeal had been the monster, maybe now that another hero had set him down, he’d have enough dreams for himself. To remember being who he was, now that he didn’t have to share.

Maybe-

Angeal tries to explain, hopes someone is listening, if he could only think of it the right way and-

There had been a boy once, shining.

And a man, once, burning.

And the pyre he’d become, well, that flame was still there.

He was still Angeal’s friend. And so Angeal reached, as if he still had hands and-

_If you could only see, just. Look at him. He’s hurting, he can do better._

_I promise._

_He can do better._

**Author's Note:**

> This was a distressing thing to write, something I lay entirely at the feet of my friend Ace. I am not at all sorry.


End file.
